> If you put it that way, I read it as "in contrast with e.g. Germany or France". However those countries are also built on citizenship. The distinction betwee

> If you put it that way, I read it as "in contrast with e.g. Germany or France". However those countries are also built on citizenship. The distinction between these three has been discussed very deeply in political science (in Germany, I have no idea about the US discourse). Usually these three can be imagined as different points on a scale, with the US on the citizenship end, France in between and Germany at the ethnic end. Of course the German state nowadays doesn't refer to race as the defining element anymore, but there is still a distinct difference in the minds of the average citizen. I've heard a great anecdote about this in university: If an immigrant in the US raises the US flag on the 4th of July, this would be seen as quite normal behaviour. If an immigrant in Germany would raise the German flag on 3rd of October (the German equivalent to 7/4), that would usually result in raised eyebrows. This does not imply that the Germans are racist here, just that the unconscious definition of what it means to be a part of a nation is still quite different from the US. It more heavily refers to common values and allegiance to the constitution in the US, and common ancestry in Germany.